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Best Zelda Games: Console & Handheld

What are your favorite Zelda games for console and for handheld and why?

I'm about to start playing Oracle of Seasons & Oracle of Ages. Not too clear on whether or not they are completely different games or if they are extremely similar with small differences (like with Pokemon Red, Blue and Yellow). I'm finding out that even when it comes to Zelda games, you can't really find older handheld system games at stores. Lost a bid on Ebay for Oracle but I'll get my hands on it soon. Anyway, I just love talking about the Zelda series.

I only ever finished Zelda: Link's Awakening. But it was an awesome gameboy game. Definitely one of my favorites, also really enjoyed the color remake. I've tried the NES and SNES games but never got far. Maybe it was my lack of options when I had the gameboy game that motivated me. Still, very fond memories. I wonder if I have a copy somewhere.

I know it's a cliche, but Majora's Mask is definitely one of my favorite Zelda games. When I first played it, I was surprised by how unintentionally dark it was; since the game contained three full day's worth of events, if you played your cards right, you would be able to visit pretty much anywhere in the kingdom at any time of the day; some of the events on the third day before the end were sort of sad. Like Cremia and her sister; there's this running thread through their little side story that only adults can drink the milk from the farm, so she never lets her sister have any; if you talk to them on the third day, before the crash, she'll tell her that she can have some because she's an adult now, or something like that, and she can sleep in her sister's bed tonight. It's like she doesn't have the heart to tell her they're all gonna die. Majora's Mask was like the Ernest Hemingway of Zelda games; the game itself was good, but it was these little side stories and characters that fleshed it out and really drew you into its environments.

Oracle of Seasons and Ages for the Game Boy Color were also pretty cool, though. Me and my sister still play those sometimes; if you play one, you can use a code to link it to the other one and get the full story. It was like Pokemon (two versions), except both versions had completely different items, dungeons and storylines, so they were actually two full games. And of course the puzzles were awesome; if you managed to beat both of them connected together, you could do the super-difficult Hero's Cave, which had some of the trickiest puzzles in the series.

"I'm sorry
For all the things that I never did
For all the places I never was
For all the people I never stopped
But there was nothing I could do..."

I don't think it's cliche at all to have Majora's Mask be your favorite. Pretty much everyone seems to prefer Ocarina of Time.

I agree with what you said about MM pulling you into the environments with the stories and everything. No Zelda game has gave me that feeling of connectedness to the environment. Just walking around town, it almost felt like everyone I talked to and everything I did had a consequence. Something about the layout of the map in MM seemed slightly lame to me though. Not that I could even say how to improve it, it just wasn't quite as cool as the map in Ocarina. There was basically nothing to Termina field. It was boring and there's very little to say about it. For example, walking across the field to Hyrule Castle for the first time in Ocarina seemed so epic. Nothing like that in Termina field, it just connected the areas.

Ocarina of Time was def. a more epic story though. I think that carries a lot of weight with people when they judge the games. On a psychological level, Ocarina is far more likely to leave lasting impressions than MM just on the fact that the gameplay and graphics were new.

The one I prefered is a Link to the Past but I really enjoyed The Phantom Hourglass... not as a Zelda game though... I just thought it made a really good use of the Nintendo DS...Spirit tracks was boring. I didn't like the train thing.

Ocarina of Time was the first one that I finished, so it is the one that I have the most feelings for.

The Zelda games that I have played and finished are The Adventure of Link (on emulator though), A Link to the Past, Ocarina of Time, Majora's Mask, The Wind Waker, Twilight Princess, Phantom Hourglass and Skyward Sword. But I have also played the first game and Link's Awakening.

I have played and cleared every Zelda game except Zelda 2 and the two DS games. It is hard to pick a favourite, but it might be Oracle of Ages. Although Ages and Seasons are fairly similar, there are differences here and there, a whole new map and people, which makes Ages a tad better. I didn't think so at the time, but in retrospect I find Wind Waker to be a very great game. It might be the game with the best music of them all.